


Like Violin and Piano

by lettertoelise



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, FSNW Music Challenge, Fluff, Music, Piano playing Fitz, Romance, Violin playing Jemma, i have no idea how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertoelise/pseuds/lettertoelise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time, it’s a whisper - the soft creak of the damper pedal, a shyness that plays behind the melody like a blush.  It’s not something she can walk past.</p><p>Jemma is frozen, entranced by the piano’s song, the crescendo that builds in waves, always returning to a refrain so delicate it could shatter.  The song ends, another begins, and she lingers.</p><p> </p><p>Or - the one where Jemma hears someone playing the piano through the flimsy door of the practice room and finds she can’t stop listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Violin and Piano

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution/contest entry for the FSNW Music Challenge - because how could I not? I am trash for piano playing Fitz. I hope you like it!!
> 
> Millions of thanks to AmandaRex for her beta work and her help with all things sciency :)  
> And to dot11 for the BEAUTIFUL banner!!!! I'm completely blown away  
> 

The first time, it’s a whisper - the soft creak of the damper pedal, a shyness that plays behind the melody like a blush.  It’s not something she can walk past.

 

Jemma is frozen, entranced by the piano’s song, the crescendo that builds in waves, always returning to a refrain so delicate it could shatter.  The song ends, another begins, and she lingers.

 

Construction has forced the music department to move their practice rooms here to the old storage wing of the biology building, the spacious closets almost perfect save for their flimsy walls.  It’s how Jemma finds herself, back pressed against the door and sliding to her knees with her eyes closed, breathing slowed, letting the music pull her under.  

 

When finally there is silence, replaced by the shuffle of a backpack and the gentle click of shoes against tile, Jemma scrambles to her feet, guilty and clutching the armful of neglected lab supplies to her chest before making her escape.  She rounds the corner just before the door opens - because how would she explain it - if a song feels like a secret and she is eavesdropping?      

 

***

 

Leo Fitz has fingers that don’t just move, they dance.  On the gears and wires of the device he’s building.  On the keyboard of the piano he’s playing.  On his thigh when he’s nervous.  They are a metronome keeping a sort of covert time, tapping out some internal rhythm on any available surface.

 

The girl at the other end of his favorite table in the university library, however, does not seem to appreciate this quality when she lifts her head from her book to glare at him - a subtle reminder that his pencil does not need to bounce.

 

“Sorry,” Fitz mutters and returns to his studies.  Almost.  He _would_ return to his studies, that is, except for the brunette browsing the stacks to his left, her brow furrowed as she scans the bindings.  Jemma Simmons.  She is in his fourth year chem lab ( _although they’re both only second years, he hasn’t failed to notice_ ), beautiful, smart, and completely unaware of his existence.

 

She bites her bottom lip as she draws a book from its shelf and stashes it in her bag.  When Jemma looks up, Fitz darts back to his notes.  Somehow it’s easier this way.  Avoidance means delaying the moment he humiliates himself--that moment when the wrong word slips from his mouth or he drops something, or does anything, really.  Because Leo Fitz is very good at being awkward.  So he scribbles something on the page, buries his nose in the print, and hopes she continues not noticing him.    

 

Suddenly there is an angry grunt as his neighbor slams her bag on the desk, rolls her eyes and gestures to the pencil revisiting its assault against the table.  

 

The girl is scowling as she thrusts herself from her chair and Fitz wishes he could sink into the floor.  There is no way he is anonymous now.  He is that nervous library patron with the busy fingers and Jemma Simmons is looking at him.  She is looking at him and walking toward him.  She is walking toward him and sliding into the seat beside him.  Fitz gapes at her.  

 

“You’re Leo Fitz, right?”  She is talking to him.  More gaping.

 

“Jemma Simmons,” she says, offering a hand.  “We’re in chem lab together.”

 

His body has gone silent.  That itch to move?  Extinguished.  Fitz wills every muscle in his arm to lift itself and accept the handshake.  It’s stiff at best, and Jemma grins.

 

“I guess I’ll see you later then?”  She’s tilted her head forward in inquiry, but his tongue is clumsy.  

 

“Mmm,” is the best he can do.  His cheeks are red.  This is horrible.  

 

But by some riddle she is still smiling, peeking at his notes before tossing her bag over her shoulder and making her exit.  The swing of her ponytail is the last thing he sees by the time he finally finds the words.

 

“Bye.”

 

***

When she is alone in the evenings, Jemma reaches for her violin.  It’s old and tired, long overlooked - a relic of a life she used to have.  It used to remind her of forced lessons, tedious hours of practice and mandatory recitals, school chamber ensembles and band camp.  Now she finds it sliding into place under her chin, its familiar weight on her shoulder.  She struggles at first to find the notes, like a novice with tape still marking the neck.  But when she closes her eyes, she can conjure the piano and its song, and she finds the reedy voice of her violin threading itself in between the silences and around the highs and lows of the refrain.  

 

It’s been months now.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10am.  That’s when it happens.  It’s when Jemma sneaks down to the basement of the biology building, the piano leading the way.  Its melody is pronounced against the legato backdrop of the left hand, the rhythm stalling, like every note is being savored.   

 

Jemma makes herself comfortable against the door and closes her eyes.  She has an hour.  An hour to live like it’s her last moment to breathe.  

 

It’s her secret.  She’s memorized her favorite songs like stories written by a favorite author.  She’s picked out the notes and invented her own counter melodies.  Her heart plays along, her fingers itch at her sides.   

It is a moment of betrayal, really, when somehow her violin manages to manifest itself in her bag.  The piano is singing and the violin lays in the open case on her lap, staring up at her, innocent.  Jemma runs through scenarios in her head - the pianist stops playing, they throw open the door, they demand that she leave.  Or . . .

 

The bow meets the strings and she begins to play.  

 

The violin finds its descant, high and clear over the tumbling of the piano, the notes lacing over one another in perfect choreography.  The piano is growing louder, almost thumping in its intensity, and Jemma’s bow drags itself deeper across the strings.  

 

The song ends.  Jemma is panting.  

 

She hears the scrape of the bench pushed away from the piano, the shake of a hand on the doorknob.  This is the moment when it all ends.  So she grabs her bag, throws the instrument under her arm and runs.

 

***

 

Jemma Simmons is his lab partner.  Professor Vaughn announces it with a sneer and Fitz nearly chokes on the lump that’s appeared in his throat.    

 

While he is immediately busy inspecting every tile in the floor, Jemma just smiles in that way she does - warm, like the sun on his face, and props herself up on the stool beside him.    

 

“You two are good on your own, but let’s see if together you can make music.”  Vaughn says and Fitz knows this is a dig.  The man’s been singling them out for torture since the term began, assigning them the most challenging labs, docking them credit for any miniscule oversight.  Fitz had even been required to stay late cleaning equipment after he had asked to skip class to attend a recital.  Because it’s unconventional to major in both engineering and music, and bullies like Vaughn have always used it as a means to get under his skin.  There is no practicality in the pursuit - he is wasting his time, they say, but they can’t see the harmony behind the machinery.  They can’t appreciate the mathematics behind the notes.   

 

So Fitz shakes it off.  Besides, Jemma Simmons is flipping through his binder, and he struggles to hear her questions over the sound of his own heartbeat.   

 

“It appears we'll be investigating theories of solution thermodynamics.  It's quite exciting, isn't it?”  she is saying, her eyes lighting as she flips the pages.  “Of course, multicomponent gases or liquids often undergo compositional changes as a result of mixing or separation, as I'm sure you're already aware.”

 

He stalls, barely able to respond, but Jemma doesn’t seem to mind that his voice doesn’t work, that his fingers drum on the table, that he’s probably sweating more than he should (because how is every space 10 degrees warmer when she is in it?).  

 

“I propose that we choose a particular set of compounds to combine into a solution, and then set out to measure the effects of varying either temperature or pressure. Which do you think would have a more significant application from an engineering perspective?"

 

She just keeps slowly coaxing him with questions, lifting the words from him one nervous and broken sentence at a time.  Soon he is sketching designs and she is jotting down notes, their ideas overlapping.     

 

“We’re like violin and piano, you and I,” she says, and for a moment, he agrees.

 

Until the color drains from his face.  

 

“What did you say?”

 

How could she know?  How could she know about the aria playing in his mind on repeat, the clear notes of a violin transcending his song - the panic of his fingers as they’d struck the piano keys in a frantic race to keep time.  How could she know he’d scrambled to the door only to confront an empty hallway?  

 

Because it must have been a dream.  The violinist who had turned his solo act into a duet.

     

“Fitz?”  Jemma is staring at him, puzzled, and he realizes he’s let his pencil slip from between his fingers and it’s rolling down the open page of notes in a desperate sprint to the floor.   

 

“Hmm?”  he stalls and it’s all he can manage as he plunges under the table, resurfacing with the CRACK of his head against wood and the traitorous pencil in hand, embarrassment burning in his cheeks.

 

“Are you okay?” Jemma asks in alarm.  She’s on her feet and racing to inspect the damage.  Everything is forgotten.  Her fingers are in his hair and the size of the lump on his temple doesn’t matter - Leo Fitz feels no pain.

 

***

 

He’s written a new song.  Granted, Jemma is only guessing it’s a _he._ She has no basis, not really, except for the presumed size of his hands given the spread of the notes - but in her mind she imagines a _he_. Actually, in her mind she imagines Fitz, but that is probably her subconscious trying to tell her something.  She’s ignoring it.    

 

 _He_ begins to play, and Jemma closes her eyes.  She lets her violin rest on her folded legs and just listens.  The usual note of melancholy is missing, and she grins despite herself.  Finally a song played in a major key.

 

It feels clumsy - notes rubbing against one another, hesitating and off balance, but it’s joyful - like falling in love.  It feels like butterflies in her stomach, like the sweet electricity between knuckles accidentally brushing.  It feels like being in the lab with Fitz, timid gazes and shy smiles.  It feels like hope _._  

 

***

He is never fast enough.  The song ends, the violin fading, and by the time he swings open the door, she’s always gone.  Although - he can’t be _sure_ it’s a she.  In truth, ever since that day in the lab Fitz has been imagining Jemma behind the violin’s clear melody; he imagines the bow in her hand, sweeping across the strings.  

 

But Jemma has never actually mentioned playing an instrument, and talent like that isn’t something a person keeps a secret.  Except.  

 

Fitz had never set out to become a musician.  He had preferred to employ his nimble fingers to the destruction and reconstruction of moving parts, electronics, and machines.  Music?  That was something his father did, a man determined to fill their house with the sound of his imagination tumbling across the keys.  Fitz’s memory was full of the tap of his mother’s feet against the linoleum floor - Oh, how she loved to dance.  And his father would drag them to every recital, every concert he could bribe his way into (even if he had to mop floors or repair stages, give away free lessons or waltz with the theater owner’s wife).  

 

One car accident and their house was silent.  His mother forgot how to smile, her feet forgot how to move.  Until the day Fitz sat at the piano.  His mother cried and they began to heal.  

 

Music?  It is something private - a memory Fitz shapes from highs and lows and sharps and flats.  He avoids any performance that isn’t required for a grade, and he sneaks to the basement of the old biology building to pour his heart into the piano.  

 

But this violin?  It feels like _more_ , filling holes in the music he hadn’t realized were there.  The violin feels like _more_ the way Jemma feels like _something_ \- the way she finishes his sentences and brings new dimension to his ideas.  Fitz knows they cannot be the same, but in his heart, if music had a name, it would be Jemma Simmons.  

 

***

 

Jemma could never understand why architects had stopped making theaters into palaces.  Of course, budget is probably a consideration, but the university recital hall just feels so cold with its sterile white walls and surprisingly red chairs.  

 

She’s snuck into the back row, too nervous to even grab a program.  Because she almost hadn’t come; it had almost felt like too much.  A lone flyer had hung outside the practice room door (Had he hung it for her?).  ‘Spring Student Recital’, it read, and she’d found herself recording the time and date.   

     

Jemma is shifting in her seat, wiping sweaty palms on her thighs, and the first two performers come and go before she even realizes the recital has started.  She doesn’t even hear them.  

 

At intermission, Jemma is convinced she’s made a mistake.  The mystery pianist will not be here, and even if he is?  Then what?  But the lights dim, she’s waited too long, and the next student is being announced on the stage.  

 

“It’s a rare treat to have him perform for us tonight,” the dowdy old professor is saying, “But his semester grade depends on it!”  Laughter.  Jemma slides her hands under her thighs.

 

“I’m pleased to introduce one of our departments finest - Leopold Fitz.”

 

Jemma nearly swallows her tongue.  Fitz is walking out to the piano in the center of the stage, head bowed and shoulders pulled tightly together.  

 

“I’ll be playing an original song tonight,” he mumbles into the microphone.  “It’s called, um, ‘The Quietest Love’.”

 

Jemma has forgotten how to breathe.

 

Fitz’s fingers meet the keys with an unbearable softness.  He is breaking all the rules, his posture bent and his head rolling down to sway with the melody.  Fitz draws circles with his body, eyes somewhere between here and forever, partly closed, his lips pursed.  

 

He’s playing a song she’s heard before.  It is impatient, the constant downbeat of his left hand setting the pace.  The right hand repeats a theme that is increasingly warmer, it is increasingly less dissonant.  Jemma is so lost she almost forgets.  

 

This is _their_ song.  The first one she’d heard through the door of the practice room.  The one that ached for the warbled voice of her violin.  It builds like a storm missing thunder, like there is a message of want beneath those notes and she knows.  He’s chosen this song for her.  

 

The applause brings her to her feet.  There are tears in her eyes, her soul is on fire.  

 

Fitz takes his bow but the audience is still clapping as he leaves the stage.  

 

***

 

Jemma is avoiding him.  Fitz wasn’t sure at first but he’s definitely sure now.  She doesn’t sit with him at the table, poring over the data and tossing out ideas, she flutters back and forth from one end of the lab to the next.  When she does finally look at him, her smile is forced, her voice carries a cheery hollow quality and she keeps finding excuses to disappear for supplies or to ask Vaughn a question (which is almost never warranted).  

 

It’s driving him crazy and Fitz just wants to shake her until the old Jemma comes _back_.       

 

“Is everything alright?” he asks for the millionth time.  She gives an airy laugh and scurries off to the closet.  

 

He’s been racking his brain trying to figure out when he must have done it, when he must have said something or done something to scare her off.  But - there’s nothing.  A week ago they were laughing, sharing sandwiches and producing some of the best damn scientific results this institution had ever seen.  Now they are barely speaking.  

 

“I’m going to go ahead and prep for our next trials,” he calls, shaking his head.  Jemma doesn’t respond, maybe she can’t hear him from the closet, but the silence eats at him.  

 

He’s trying to be careful, placing Jemma’s binders and notes off to the side of their station before setting up, but his nervous hands knock everything to the floor, papers flying everywhere.  And then he finds it.  Fitz is scooping everything together, throwing the mess up on the table to be sorted, when his eyes fall on a sheet of music paper, dotted in black ink.  

 

It’s a score?  A part for violin running parallel to one for piano below.  He glances at the key signature, his eyes trail the melody.  Fitz knows this song.  This song is his.  

 

***

 

Jemma is a coward.  After the recital, she’d wanted to wait for him, to congratulate Fitz on his performance (to tell him her secret).  But she didn’t.

 

Every day she wants to confess.  When he looks up at her in concern and asks if she’s ok, she wants to tell him that he is amazing, that she had forgotten the sound of her own soul until she heard his music, until she heard his laughter.  But she doesn’t.  

 

Instead she finds herself hiding in the closet, counting out petri dishes for the fourth time and trying to steal the confidence to face him again.

 

But Jemma finally persuades herself to re enter the lab and Fitz is sitting in the center of a hurricane on the floor.  

 

“What happened here?” she asks, dropping her load on the table.  Fitz doesn’t look up from the sheet of paper on his lap.

 

“Jemma - where did you find this?”

 

“Hmm?” she responds, tipping over to gather some of the mess.  He holds something out in front of her.   

 

Jemma's hands start to shake as she takes the paper and turns it over in her hands.  

 

“This is my song, Jemma.  W-why . . .” Fitz doesn’t continue, instead kneading his thumb and forefinger over the crease in his brow.  He looks up at her, eyes clear and blue like the ocean but without any of its chill.  

 

“I didn’t know if you’d care it was me.”  The words spill from her.  “I saw your concert - I wanted to tell you.”

 

He’s staring at her in disbelief, raking a hand over his face, mouth still open in shock.  “So it was you the entire time?”

 

Jemma nods.

 

He exhales in a soft puff, shaking his head and Jemma collapses.  It’s what she has been afraid of - except now she isn’t only losing the music, she is losing Fitz too.  She claps her hand to her mouth to choke a sob, the tears at the corners of her eyes reaching capacity to escape down her cheeks.  

 

“I’m glad.”  He says softly.  It is a whisper.  When she dares to look at him, there is a soft smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  “I was writing the songs for you anyway.”  

 

She sputters, or is it a laugh?  Either way it feels like joy.  He is tracing patterns on the floor with his fingers, any anger now diffused into bashfulness and this - this is a key change, from minor to major, and she reaches for his hand.  

 

“I couldn’t find a way to tell you how I felt, so I just -” Fitz swallows and she squeezes his fingers as they slip between hers.  She scoots closer, resting her head on his shoulder.

 

“Your music inspired something in me I didn’t know I had,” she says softly.  He sniffs in surprise and this must be what a truly speechless Fitz looks like, one that is not nervous or anxious.  One that instead breathes into her hair and wraps his arm around her shoulder.

  
The next time Jemma finds herself by the door to the practice room, she opens it.  It’s difficult, making music between stolen kisses, and sometimes the song grinds to a halt when their laughter bubbles over, both left gasping for air.  But their notes slide together like their hands and overlap like their tongues, and this, Jemma decides, is what she had been searching for all along.   

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!! I'd love to hear your thoughts!! 
> 
> Here's my mini playlist of songs that inspired this fic:  
> 1st song: Olafur Arnalds, Tomorrow’s Song  
> 2nd: Balmorhea, Lament  
> For kicks: Dustin O’Halloran, Fragile N.4  
> OMG and honestly: Dustin O’Halloran, Opus 26


End file.
